For anyone contemplating a similar trip this is a report on the road conditions I experienced on a journey completed 2 days ago on the
Great Central Road, traveling from West to East.
I completed the approx 1100km journey From
Laverton to Yularu resort in 4 days. My vehicle is a PX
Ranger and I was towing a Sunland Patriot caravan, both 5 years old. The
Ranger has a long range tank and an upgraded
suspension. I had lowered my tyre pressures to 30 psi for the van and front wheels of the
Ranger while the vehicle rear wheels were at 34. I thought of going lower but both vehicle and caravan had a near full load so I was somewhat cautious. I tried to sit on between 55 -60 km/hr.
The first 150km of the road east from
Laverton is the vehicle access for the newly established Gruyere gold
mine and is subject to continuous
mine traffic ranging from Land Cruisers to road trains. While wide and
well maintained it had some consistent minor corrugations but was easily traveled.
After the
mine access turn off, the road was not as wide but the surface was in better condition with fewer corrugations and while dusty there were no bulldust hole problems and good speeds could be maintained
These good road conditions continued until the
WA/NT border where things changed for the worse. From the border to the Docker River community the road was obviously not maintained to the standard on the WA side but still OKish, but from Docker River to the east where it experiences heavier traffic the road surface is in very poor condition.
There has been no recent rain so there are currently no wheel ruts but the corrugations are severe especially at the many sand
hill crossings. Going faster to try and find a 'sweet spot' for skipping across the corrugations was just a quicker way of damaging vehicle and caravan.
There are 4 road houses on the trip and all are fairly evenly spaced. All sell fuel but on my trip the roadhouse at Warakurna was out of diesel but was hopeful of receiving a resupply within the next 24 hours (perhaps, maybe, fingers crossed). Top price paid was $2.50 per litre at Docker River but the others were all near that. All the road houses had EFTPOS facilities. Telstra coverage is available a few km either side of
Warburton,Warakurna and Docker River communities
I saw no road graders on any stage of the trip but there was evidence they had been working on the WA section . As for the NT section I doubt the road there has seen a
grader in the past 5 years.
All in all I had a great time and enjoyed the experience